


The Witching Hour at Beth's Diner

by ChainSmokesPens



Category: Original Work
Genre: Diners, Fantasy, Flash Fic, Superheroes, Supervillains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:01:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28764486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChainSmokesPens/pseuds/ChainSmokesPens
Summary: Prompt: [WP] The idea of Punch-clock heroes and villains is actually very common. Often times, a fight has been ended because one or both parties were coming to the end of their shift.
Kudos: 2





	The Witching Hour at Beth's Diner

Luanne was mentally preparing herself for the Witching Hour, the rush period between three o’clock and six.

Kirby City was a bustling metropolis of industry, commerce, and culture that boasted one of the wealthiest communities in the United States. This meant two terrible things. First, the city was a breeding ground for supervillains, evil scientists, and otherworldly monsters. Second, that for the low price of six thousand dollars a month you got to live in a shoebox.

But fantasies of resting in her single-window shoebox would have to wait. The Witching Hour was upon them. And both villains and heroes would be pouring into Beth’s Diner, either wrapping up a long night or getting ready for a long day. The nature of that time wasn’t important to Beth’s boss, only that the customer’s money was American.

Leave it to her boss to also corner the market as the only diner in the city to serve the capes between their business hours.

The bell above the door chimed. They were already here. And the coffee wasn’t even ready.

Luanne’s pen moved across her pad like a speeding bullet, writing up ornate tickets for the myriad of clients filling up the diner. Poor Dave in the kitchen was in for a rough night.

The Badger Boys came in first, conspicuously trying to appear inconspicuous, loose bills falling out of their back pockets as they loudly declared that they didn’t just rob a bank. Doctor Lazarus, who reeked of the decomposing flesh of his lab experiments, was only allowed to order if he got his food to go. Seductra tried to come in topless, but Luanne was quick to argue, and she was eventually forced to buy and then wear a Beth’s Diner hoodie is she wanted to be served. President Zeus, who joked about how he was going to raise taxes nationwide, tried to light a cigar made with dollars, who insisted the food be taken back and fixed to his liking three times, tipped thirty thousand dollars on his way out; the staff said nothing, lustily eying the dollar bills that bore the president’s smug face.

If the villains were obnoxious, the heroes were exhausting. Silver Knight was off the wagon again, obvious in how he chose to forego his usual three burgers and just get a Caesar salad with some water. Every week, Minerva would bring in a party of fifteen women, preach about the strength and independence of the liberated woman, and then coquettishly ask Muscle Mask to pay for her table. Which he would. The Lion God was as charismatically magnetic as he was handsome, and the chipper way he’d greet Luanne as she flailed in the madness around her made her want to douse him in hot coffee.

The Witching Hour was more than a stressful time of dinner orders and breakfast orders landing at the wrong tables.

It was a time of lengthy debates about the costs of repairs around the city and who should be paying for them, uptight workaholic enemies bonding over having each ordered the huevos rancheros, lumps of muscle with living people in there somewhere asking for phone numbers, and an exhausted Luanne taking her tips and heading back to her shoebox at six in the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> This one I feel could be made into a story of its own.


End file.
